


angels fall first

by LocketShoru



Series: in kismet marcescence [5]
Category: Saint Seiya, 聖闘士星矢: 冥王神話 | Saint Seiya: The Lost Canvas
Genre: Albafica's POV, Cliffhanger, Fluff, Forbidden Love, Hurt/Comfort, Implied Violence, M/M, Minos' POV, Star-crossed, aiacos and rhadamanthys are barely there
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-05-04
Updated: 2020-05-04
Packaged: 2021-03-01 22:42:02
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply, Underage
Chapters: 1
Words: 5,000
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/23994679
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/LocketShoru/pseuds/LocketShoru
Summary: Albafica would like some peace and quiet to stew over his own anger, not be stuck on a mission with friends. Shion and Manigoldo suck at helping. The sound of a sorrowful violin against the chatter of a noisy tavern? Arguments can be made, for that.
Relationships: Griffon Minos/Pisces Albafica
Series: in kismet marcescence [5]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1645942
Comments: 6
Kudos: 9





	angels fall first

**Author's Note:**

> The poem quoted in this fic is [On Being Raised on Fairy Tales When You Are The Monster](https://publicdescriptionsofthemoon.tumblr.com/post/112818798582/on-being-raised-on-fairy-tales-in-which-you-are), which I discovered on my harddrive and just knew had to be quoted. So yeah. The song Minos sings is I See Fire, and we're using the Celtic Woman version.  
> I planned on this being a different fic, which'll happen later, but then I fucked up the timeline so we ended up with a different title and a different ending, because they're not at the touching part of their relationship. So have some early "we're in love but Alba's not ready to smooch yet".  
> I'd say sorry about that ending, but I'm not, and you know that. :p

The sands of time dripped down from the heavens, grain by grain, until it would drown him, until he slipped beneath the surface, until he couldn’t breathe. He would drown below time’s damnation, and he almost didn’t care.

It had been weeks - three, and five days to add onto it, and he was still rocked against a rocky shore of his own denial. They had come so _close_ , and had it scared him off? Had the waves been too high even for the black angel who had always seemed so daring? 

He ignored Shion and Manigoldo, excitedly talking about the mission’s success. “Did you see the way I jumped over him with the Stardust Revolution?” “Hah, speak for yourself, you only managed it because I flipped him over with an Acubens-”

Oh, what did it matter? He’d been the one to call the guillotine, to judge and to damn. Shion and Manigoldo had both been distracted, they hadn’t heard him lean down to the enemy and whisper, “Tell Minos I said hey, and that I love him,” as he slipped a deadly rose between the man’s ribs. It didn’t matter what anything else could have been. He’d learned to love the secrets for what they were: to be taken to the graves, each and every one. He’d water his gardens with silvery tears, and if they were his own, well. Some things need to be shed, if a bird’s to fly.

Though even he found it offensive that the Spectres could cry blood for the theatrics, and he couldn’t. Still…

He took a sip of the milkshake in front of him, refreshingly cold and sweet with strawberries. There’d been a shipment of ice recently, and all the taverns here were making use of it. It wasn’t often they got cold drinks this far south. He sighed, resting his hand on his chin. Manigoldo glanced over.

“C’mon, Alba, join us properly,” he said, and Albafica barely spared him a glance. It wasn’t even worth it, not with the seas of his anger still threatening to pull him down. If it weren’t for poison, he’d be playing a different game entirely.

At least when Lune fell to the ground, he got back up. If he punched Manigoldo out for crimes he didn’t mean to commit, he wasn’t likely to get that same reaction. He hated him, a little, for all of what he’d done. They were friends, as much as he had them. But he’d stepped into the shadows and found moonlight-washed seafoam on lavender eyes and rosy cheeks, and Albafica hadn’t seen Minos since.

It couldn’t have been that close of a call, not with Minos out of his surplice and cloaked with undyed fabrics. There was no way they could have recognized each other, not twice. He turned his face away from his companions, scanning over the tavern yet again.

There was another group of teenage boys, by the door, seemingly arguing quietly. Not loud enough to overhear any gossip, not quiet enough to be suspicious. The barmaid was off serving a group of fishermen, and the bartender was making something, he was sure, but what he was making was a mystery.

He sighed, deeply. Manigoldo poked his ribs. He jumped back, moving from a foot and a half away to near three, almost falling off the bench. “ _What_?” he demanded, voice low and venomous. Manigoldo knew better. It didn’t stop him, but he knew better.

“You gonna join in the conversation, or what?” he asked. He didn’t look very apologetic about having poked him. “You’re just off staring into space and refusing to do anything but mope.”

“You did good out there,” Shion contributed. “You killed him, and you did a really good job of it. Clean. It wasn’t flashy, but it worked really well.” His face softened, Lemurian features already dull on his face. “You don’t need to be upset, really. You did your job, and besides- we’re seeing a Shakespeare play tonight, and I know those are your favourite. I’d think you’d be excited, considering how much the tickets cost.”

He wanted to roll his eyes. They were seeing _Romeo & Juliet_, and if he were to be truthful, they couldn’t have picked a better analogy for his life. He’d never meant to be a Juliet in his own story, but the conflict was just as forgotten. He’d always been the monster meant to protect them, and he had begun to wonder what it all was worth.

“We’ll see,” he said, grudgingly. Somewhere across the room, his ears picked up the soft hum of a violin. He turned at the same moment his companions did. The teenage boys at the other side of the tavern appeared to have stopped arguing: indeed, one of them now held a fiddle, and was playing softly, settled atop the top of the back of the bench, his hood held up over his face. For a moment, he wasn’t sure. And in the next, he realized he knew that disguised cosmos.

“ _Oh, misty eye of the mountain below… Keep careful watch of my brothers' souls_ ,” Minos whispered, barely above his violin. He shifted back to resettle his position, his violin soft and yet somehow audible. “ _And should the sky be filled with fire and smoke… Keep watching over Father's sons._ ”

The tavern hushed around his lover, listening to the soft plucking of the violin. “ _If this is to end in fire, then we should all burn together. Watch the flames climb higher, into the night… And if we should die tonight; then we should all die together. Watch the flames climb high for the last time..._ ”

He stayed where he was, eyes fixated on the cloak of his lover, dark brown and disguising his cosmos. His voice was so _sorrowful_ , the mourning of a bird that he knew all too well. Albafica hadn’t seen him in weeks. “ _Calling out father, oh, prepare as we will watch the flames burn auburn on- the mountainside. Desolation comes upon the sky._ ”

His voice caught in on the chorus, and Minos tossed his head back to watch the ceiling, watch the stars hidden above the wood that never forgot its roots. “ _Now I see fire, inside the mountain. I see fire, burning the trees… And I see fire, hollowing souls; and I see fire - blood in the breeze. And I hope that you’ll remember me._ ”

Minos slipped off of his spot, landing neatly to the floor and descending like a wave to stand, to step forward, to twirl himself without a lover to guide him. That was his position. He had his hands full with the violin, the melody sharp and sorrowful and yearning, but Albafica should be there, twirling him, setting his cloak into a circle. He couldn’t make himself rise, couldn’t join him upon the makeshift stage of the open area between the tables. If Shion and Manigoldo weren’t here, he would have been on his feet by now. But he couldn’t. They couldn’t be seen together, no, not by anyone of Sanctuary. 

“ _Oh, should my people fall, then surely I'll do the same. Confined in mountain halls, we got too close to the flame. Calling out father, oh, prepare as we will watch the flames burn auburn on- the mountainside. Desolation comes upon the sky. Now, I see fire…_ ”

He belted back into the chorus, his voice holding out every note, stretching out every syllable. He had every eye in the tavern upon him, nobleman’s clothing and corset-vest under that cloak. He knew how to draw the room’s attention, and now he was performing, and even from here, Albafica could see the unshed tears in those lavender eyes. “ _And I hope that you’ll remember me._ ”

Minos took a breath, and their eyes met, and he knew he was lost. He had been claimed, this he knew well, and Minos dropped to a kneel six feet away, descending into the bridge of the song. His voice took on a desperation, a mourning so clear he could never have resisted him. 

“ _And if the night is burning, I will cover my eyes. For if the dark returns, then my brothers will die._ ”

His heart broke at the words, the meaning ringing clearer than it ever could have before. No matter what happened, no matter who they wanted to grow up to be. At the end, they would still be on two different shores of a river of blood. And there would never be a way to swim. “ _And as the sky is falling down, it crashed into this lonely town. And with that shadow upon the ground, I hear my people screaming out. I see fire, inside the mountain…_ ”

There were shadows in his eyes, haunting him with a ghost he’d never be free of. There were lights in his eyes, unshed tears, dancing between the shadows, dodging any attempts to slaughter them, to let them fall.

“And I hope that you remember me,” Albafica whispered, the same moment Minos did, as the song ended. He watched his lover rise from his kneeling position to the applause of the taverngoers, and he felt Manigoldo snicker behind him as Minos walked back to his seat, his face towards the tavern, towards him. If Minos was there… He dropped back into his seat beside his two companions, violin on the table. Albafica squinted. Beside Minos was another cloaked teenage boy, and under the shadow of his hood, he could see dark, almost-black hair. Aiacos, then, which made the tall boy across from his lover Rhadamanthys, unless something was deeply wrong.

Minos slumped in his seat, dejected-looking, his cosmos glittering dully to emphasize the fact. He hadn’t come over to say hello - they couldn’t be seen together, and he’d definitely noticed Shion and Manigoldo - and the fact seemed to ache at him, as surely as it drove thorns under Albafica’s ribs.

In that moment, he debated using one of his new Lethe-roses to sleep everyone in the tavern, just to get a moment alone with him. For now, seeing his face, hearing his voice, it had to be enough. He slouched more in his own seat, not even bothering to use the strength to sit up properly.

“He really seemed taken with you, didn’t he?” Manigoldo snickered, eyeing him. Albafica barely looked up. “You should go say hi. Maybe he’ll help you warm up, you know.”

He didn’t get a chance to snap at him before Shion interjected. “That’s crass, but Alba, you should go over and talk to him. I bet he’s nice, with how he was looking at you.”

He raised his eyes to respond and snap at them both - one of his most frequent activities, though not one of his favourites - when Aiacos’ voice snared them quiet from across the tavern.

“Really, _I See Fire_? That’s what you went with, ‘cause we’re gonna burn down this sorry little village? What was the point of that?” He could see Aiacos’ face now, his hood around his spine, his face laughing and a smug smirk on his lips. Beside him, Shion and Manigoldo froze, cosmoses twitching into tenseness, into guarded readiness to attack. They didn’t recognize him, he knew: they didn’t yet know if they were common criminals or Spectres. Albafica knew better. He knew ever so much better how deadly they were.

He didn’t catch Minos’ reply, but he did catch Aiacos’ laughter, a few moments later. “You really couldn’t have gotten any more of a mockery.”

The tavern seemed to hush again, conversations turning whispered. None wanted to draw the attention of them, but none wanted to be caught watching them intently, either. Aiacos was laughing, and thanks to the sudden quiet, he caught Rhadamanthys’ voice without an issue.

“We’re staying for the play _first_ , Aiacos,” he scolded, voice measured and strict. “We aren’t torching anything until afterward. It’s up to Minos what he wants to do, tonight’s for him, after all.”

“ _I_ wanted to stay home,” Minos snapped. His voice was a knife of glass, bitter and brittle and absolutely see-through. “I didn’t want to go anywhere. You do not have the right to pin this on me when we face her execution.”

Shion glanced at him out of the corner of his eye. “You heard those names. Please tell me you heard those names,” he whispered, his voice full of terror.

“Uh, _yeah_ ,” Manigoldo hissed back. “Judges. Fucking fantastic. We’re not outnumbered but we’re outpowered by a long shot. We fight them, we’re dead, if we don’t, we have to explain this to the guy in charge. We don’t get to be cowards.”

Albafica rolled his eyes. He didn’t catch anything more of what the Judges were saying, but he had a vague idea. And it wasn’t like he had gotten a chance to speak to Minos recently. “Shut it, the both of you,” he muttered. Manigoldo glared at him.

“What the fuck kinda plan do you have, then, if you’re going to be that way,” he answered, sparing Manigoldo a glower before rising from his seat. He adjusted his collar, allowing roses to bloom in a crown around his head, half-flower, three-quarters thorn. He squared his shoulders and strode over to the Judges.

Aiacos saw him before Minos did, owing to his chin being on the table. He tensed, eyeing him, and Albafica dropped into the open spot next to Rhadamanthys, snatching his drink off of the table and taking a long sip, staring Aiacos in the eye. He reclined back, resting his calves on the corner of the table, daring the Judges to say anything. Minos sat up, eyes bright, the lights dancing within, the shadows chasing themselves out of their depths.

“So,” he said, by way of any actual greeting. “I see someone has been practicing.” Aiacos blinked, and Rhadamanthys turned to scowl at him.

“That isn’t your glass, _Pisces_ ,” he said, the dragon’s growl rising in his throat. Albafica ignored him entirely, keeping his eyes focused on his lover. Rhadamanthys would attempt to assert control. If he focused on Aiacos, he’d shy back, giving Rhadamanthys the opportunity he needed. By focusing on Minos, who ordinarily would eat up the praise of being seen as superior and would never refuse him now, he ensured he held the upper hand. 

Minos blushed, his hand finding a lock of his snow-white hair and twisting it in his fingers. “A little,” he admitted. “I’ve had less upon my desk, without charting the lands or seas above my grace.” 

Albafica smiled, slow and gentle and predatory. He could play their game. He knew better than anything, how to play their game. Minos looked up at him again, eyes alight with confused warning.

“Did you come here alone?” he asked. “You were sitting with others.”

Albafica shook his head. “Aries Shion, Cancer Manigoldo. They know they can’t win against you.” It wasn’t a betrayal to admit that it wouldn’t need to come to a fight. If anything, it was dodging a fight. They didn’t need to prove anything if the Saints knew they wouldn’t win. Minos nodded, slowly.

“And yet they watched you,” he answered darkly. “They know what you’ve done, siren. You can’t be seen here, you know this. They are going to suspect.”

He shrugged, finishing off Rhadamanthys’ drink and dropping it upon the table, disregarding the scowl of the tall boy beside him, two feet away on the bench. He knew better than to get close to him. “They heard Aiacos’ bragging. Why would they be suspect? I’m stopping a crime, so it doesn’t matter of anything else.”

“Siren…”

Albafica met his eyes, and he narrowed his own. He rose from his seat again, a pale pink rose materializing in his hand, and he held the petals to Minos’ neck. Now, the taverngoers weren’t even trying to hide the fact they were all watching. If he started a fight, they all wanted to be ready to move. The rose was perfectly normal, without a drop of poison. It still glittered with stars, and only Minos could taste nothing but its sweetness. “Where. Have. You. Been?” he hissed, every syllable armed with the poison the rose wasn’t.

It had been almost four weeks. He knew Minos wasn’t that busy. Minos eyed him almost warily, and raised his hands so he could see they weren’t armed, not with a weapon, not with cosmos. “That Cancer of hers found secrets where he needn’t have been,” he answered slowly, wounded. The longer Albafica held him here, the deeper he’d descend into poetry, until he couldn’t be understood at all. Albafica sighed, deeply, reasserting patience he didn’t have, not tonight.

“You couldn’t possibly have said anything? I expected better.” He withdrew the rose, allowing it to slip into starlight and nothing else, turned on his heel, and stalked out of the tavern. His form shone, for just a moment, and he stepped out of the doorway with his Cloth around him, cape beginning to wave in the breeze.

“Siren, _wait_ ,” Minos all but yelped. He heard him all but spin out of his seat and follow him, leaving his brothers behind. Albafica didn’t turn around, kept striding forward out onto the road and towards the stage where they would be playing _Romeo & Juliet_. Minos followed him as he wove through the people, as they gave him a naturally wide berth. They weren’t that far from Sanctuary: everyone here knew what golden armour meant, other than “I’m very rich”. Saints weren’t, but golden armour meant one very specific thing.

He kept walking, Minos’ cosmos a few feet behind him, until he stepped into a dark alleyway that nobody in their right mind would walk into this time of night, and stopped dead. He spun on his heel to catch his lover, who stopped inches away from him, leaning back to slow his stop without crashing into him.

Albafica held his hands out, palms forward. Minos, his chest heaving more than usual, held out his in return, inches from him, not daring to touch him. Minos held out his cosmos, active and deep and bright. Albafica reached forward with his own and allowed the two to tangle. Hands clasping in starlight, holding onto each other, a hand drifting toward Minos’ waist and pulling him into his chest. Burying his face in the soft white locks of hair, without touching him at all.

Minos’ breathing eventually slowed into something normal, his cosmos slipping through Albafica’s, pressing starlight kisses at the side of his eyelashes upon the birthmark, down his cheekbones and his jawline, down to the hollow of the back of his neck that Minos was so fond of, brushing phantom lips across the skin. He was there, he truly was, as close as he could ever safely come to being in his arms. Albafica breathed in starlight air, a violet so dark it bordered on midnight, the scent of lavender and crocus and foxglove. 

He would have reached out and kissed him, stolen kisses and soft gasps and songs from him, if only it wouldn’t bleed him to do so. It would bleed them both, and he knew it. Minos looked up at him. “Siren…”

“Hush, Minos,” he murmured in return. “They can’t find us here, and I won’t waste time with your pretty excuses.” He reached his cosmos forward, focusing until Minos’ hand reached up to unbutton his collar two buttons, just enough for Albafica to slip starlight forward and press a kiss to the foundation of his neck. Minos let out a soft gasp with the sensation, his cheeks reddening into something not unlike the rose he’d threatened him with.

“You’re a cruel fish in mourning, Albafica,” Minos remarked, voice barely above a murmur. His name graced the other’s lips so gently, like a prayer, like a curse meant to bleed. He cracked a smile, his eyes hazy with mist and something else. Yearning, in all likelihood, for more they could never have together. 

“Says the tempter,” he replied. “Damn you, and what you do to me.” He tilted his head to one side, reached his cosmos further towards him, until Minos’ eyes closed with a squeak. All anyone who walked in on them would see was two teenagers standing eye to eye, one of them clad in armour, the other four inches away, his figure statuesque and his pale hair dancing around his hips. Albafica could feel himself wanting more, something dark and quiet beginning to stir in his abdomen, hungry for something he’d always denied it. Barely recognizable, but wanting to hold the one who meant so much, nowadays. He ignored it, and withdrew his cosmos to nothing more than a sliver, hands refusing to let go.

Minos drew a breath, deep and steadying, trying to regain his senses. “Are you also to see the play tonight?” he asked. His voice was still a little strained, the blush deep upon his face, as though he were still drowning in Albafica’s starlight prowess. 

Albafica nodded. “They wanted to help me feel better,” he muttered, brushing his hair out of his face, fingers tangling themselves in the sky-blue locks. “I’ve been rather downcast, since you ran off.”

“I’m sorry,” Minos answered, and he looked away. “It is dangerous, for you. If they saw my love for you… It would be disastrous beyond meaning.” 

“I don’t care,” he said, and he would have stepped forward if it were not a risk to Minos’ life. It was still cruel, to be so close, and still have to restrain himself so much. “You do things to me I don’t have words for, let alone poetry. Damn them all if I can’t have you here with me. Don’t do it again.”

Minos smiled, ever so softly, the shadows of a far more vicious nature flickering into his eyes, drowning them in darkness. “Your command is my desire,” he answered, and the smile on his lips was suddenly less soft like petals, and sharper than thistles. How nice, to love him like this, despite the blood on their hands. Or perhaps, only because of it.

He reached forward, daring, caught the tip of silver locks under his fingers, and raised it to his lips. If he let it go afterward, well. It still tasted of mist, of blood, of the poetry they would see tonight. He let his hair go, looking up when he heard Manigoldo yelling his name.

Minos’ cosmos tensed, and flickered into the shadows, until it was barely detectable. He opened his mouth to say something. Albafica silenced him with a glare, drawing two blackened roses to his hand, then to Minos’ throat, and settling himself against the wall as Shion spun into the alleyway.

“Good, you’re just in time,” he said sweetly, murderously, and he knew Minos would have rolled his eyes if their acting wasn’t critical to their survival. “I don’t think we have anything more to worry about, tonight. Do we, _Judge_?” 

The last statement was directed towards Minos, warning of something deeply painful if he didn’t comply. Only Minos knew he was lying. He stretched his eyes wide, attempting the look of someone terrified, and nodded, audibly swallowing. Albafica stepped back, pulling the blackened rose from his throat. 

Minos twitched his cosmos to brush one last time against the hollow of his neck, and turned to flee deeper into the alleyway, into the darkness where he would disappear and regroup with his brothers. Albafica allowed the roses to fade back into his cosmos, and stepped out of the alleyway. Manigoldo was just behind Shion, in his Cloth, looking worried. 

“How the fuck did you _do_ that?” he demanded. “You just walked all over them!”

Albafica allowed a smug half-smile. “Not telling. I know you grabbed my milkshake, crabhands, hand it over.”

Manigoldo glowered, stepping away, holding Albafica’s milkshake away from him. “Tell me how you managed to bully the Judges of Hell and I’ll hand it over.”

He allowed his smile to widen, widening his eyes just enough to look deranged. He’d spent two hours with Lune until he could mirror him perfectly, deranged smiles, berserk-sounding laughs, and the grace of someone who couldn’t be ruffled no matter the situation. Manigoldo stepped back, clearly unsure. Albafica darted towards him, snatching his milkshake out of his hands and twirling up onto his heel to face him again, smug and taking a sip. “Works for everyone, really,” he said. “Don’t even acknowledge the leader of any back. Find his second-in-command and sweet-talk him instead. Being best makes you a target, being second-best makes you beloved. Undermine the whole structure and bring it down. Works as good on Gold Saints as it does Spectres.”

He turned again on his heel and started walking towards the theatre, happily enough sipping on his milkshake. It was almost time to go find their seats, and knowing Minos would be there, even if they couldn’t meet up, was better than he could ever have dreamed up otherwise.

The moment the applause had mostly quit enough for the world to begin to rise, he fled from the audience. His form - nigh-ghostly, when he wanted to be - allowed him to pass, to squeeze like language through cracks and smaller spaces, until he emerged fresh from the theatre into the sweet, summer-kissed night. And he ran. 

He ran with his wings curled tight against his back, his footsteps louder in his heart than the cobblestones, the sun long since below the horizon and the stars above his only witnesses now, the rabble behind him like so many fainter scars. And he fled into the woods, into where he knew he might never be found to those who did not own a key to his heart. He stepped out into the forest, the wilds, which always seemed to call him home. His feet knew the way where his mind did not: he needed to not be seen, to be overlooked, to vanish so thoroughly like the darkness in the morning mist.

He found his solace as he stumbled over a tree root, as he broke out of his run to collapse upon his knees, dirtying his pant legs, his breath a hurricane in his throat. How wondrous it could have been now, to be anything but himself, to have shed his frail human skin for lightning’s kiss upon the wind-racked hills.

They would end in blood, he was sure. Blood and fire and iron’s sweet embrace into the seas he knew would kill him. At least he’d chosen a sea that he knew would still love him as he went down. He had gone on his knees in yearning and repenting for his sins, and the seas had told him every blessing they gave was only survival, and anything else needed payment. No, this sea he could claim as his own, this sea held his name on his lips as he drowned so peacefully into the blue.

When the sea rolled in behind him, wave after wave, he didn’t bother to turn. He simply allowed Albafica to come to a stop beside him, falling easily into a seated position inches away from him. He smiled, raw and sweet and broken, and when Albafica’s cosmos claimed his own and enveloped him, he didn’t argue.

“This world needs more Shakespeare,” said the sea, said his siren, said Albafica. “Maybe then Pope Sage would call off the stupid war, and we’d be okay.”

His voice was bitter with resentment, and he wanted to agree. But that wasn’t how people worked. He reached up with one hand, holding it two inches above Albafica’s thigh, steadying himself, allowing himself the measure to breathe. They were safe, for now. “Everything in this forest wants to kill us,” he said, softly. “Yes, this forest they’ve raised us in. Yes, this forest they won’t let us leave.”

“Young one, the only things in this forest want to hurt you,” Albafica finished, and his words turned into a watery, brutal laugh. It clenched its grasp around his heart, his hated, his loving sunflower-heart, and he leaned forward, caressed a kiss of starlight in the hollow of his lover’s neck. They both knew the poem, and Minos laughed too, staring up into those dark blue eyes like the unknowable depths of the sea.

He wanted to love anything else, but he couldn’t, because here was a siren out of water, and who was he to argue? He breathed in the scent of roses like dreams, the roses he wanted to adorn his coffin with when he forgot how to breathe. Albafica smiled at him, his eyes soft with a love Minos had never thought to be anything but human.

He smiled back, returning it, allowing them for one beautiful heartbeat, to be so entwined they could never be separated. Albafica’s cosmos found the small of his back and the foundation of his neck, like pulling Minos below him, kissing him, slipping his tongue into his mouth, claiming him as his. Persephone taking the reins, Albafica’s mouth against his with heated starlight and the darkness deep of a monster waiting to burst from his skin.

Something rustled in the bushes, deeper into the forest. They froze, a few inches from each other, listening. The echoes silent against the greenery. There was only so much darkness in the woods. Sometimes, the monsters had to share their hidey-holes. Something had to be there, lying in wait, hoping the younger monsters would make a nice snack. Minos shifted his weight, drawing back his lips for his teeth, sharpened in his anger and still stained red from the day’s activities. The bushes before them rustled, and fact was undeniable, simple as consequence. Nothing smaller than a beast indeed could be hiding from them in this manner. A pair of glowing, violet-red eyes appeared between the leaves, and Minos tasted vicious starlight on the wind.

He heard the snarl moments before it leapt. 


End file.
